Damn, No signal

Cooper wrote:

The thing is, decks that already count on more mpa's play more masters to begin with, so they will jam just as much as people withough more mpa's.

Work it through.

Player One isn't using any MMPA tech. Let's say we're a few turns into a game. If this card were not in play, Player One's actions would have been to play:
Turn 5: Wider View + Vast Wealth(*)
Turn 6: Wider View + Ventrue HQ

On turn 5, the card has no counters, so player one loses one MMPA. 1-1=0, so Player One cannot play either card. Player One now has two cards in his hand jamming him. The card gains a counter. During turn 6, the card has a counter. Player One plays Wider View. Player One gains an MPA from Wider View being a trifle! The card gains a counter because Player One has played a master. The card now has a counter, so Player One loses an MMPA.

So, two turns, one card played (25% of the four he wanted to play), and three cards that should have been played that haven't been.


Player One is using MMPA tech. For example, he has Anson in play. If this card were not in play, his two turns would be:

Turn 5: Villein + Giant's Blood + Pentex Subversion
Turn 6: Villein + Dreams of the Sphinx + Fragment of the Book of Nod

On turn 5, the card has no counters, so Player Two loses an MPA. However, Anson means he still has one. He plays Villein, which grants him an extra MPA because it's a trifle. He plays Giant's Blood with that extra MPA. At the end of turn 5, he has played two cards, and is jammed by one card. The card doesn't gain a counter, because he has played master cards.

On turn 6, the card has no counters, so Player Two loses an MPA. If he has drawn into his next Villein, he can play it. (Note that he was only one card down, so it's possible but not absolutely guaranteed.) If so, he can then play another master - maybe the Pentex Subversion from the previous turn, or maybe one of the other cards. So he's played 4 cards, and is jammed by two - that's one less card jamming him than Player One had. If he hasn't drawn into his Villein (say, it's the very next card, but not playing Pentex on turn 5 has denied it him, or similar), he plays one of his non-trifles. He's then played 3 master cards, and has three still to play - exactly the same as Player One.

Player Two doesn't seem to be doing worse than Player One out of this - if anything, somewhat better.



(*) The only reason for different cards is to make it easier to distinguish between the two situations, if necessary.

I guess that it is less of a problem to loose a master phase if you have more than one; at least you can play one that is really important.
Imagine not being able to play that villein or archon investigation when you have a healthy steath bleeder on your back.
I hear Bleeding the Vine does well in dementation bleeder decks.
Political decks are also strong, perhaps not the type of high damage deck that needs reinforcement...
Just to say that continuously loosing master phases seems too strong, at least there should be a way to get rid of it. Or make it a Malkavian-only vote

How about this?

Methuselahs do not replace cards during their Master Phase.

If you were only going to play 1 master, no big deal.
If you were going to play several, you better have them all in-hand at the start of the phase.
Visit from the Capuchin is a bit lamer and as are any temporary +Hand Size effects, but you'll get those cards as soon as your Minion Phase starts.

Not bad, but how about;

Damn! No Signal

Action, requires a ready Anarch.

Put this card in play. Once each turn, if a Methuselah plays a non-trifle master card, you may tap this card to end the current master phase (after that card resolves) and immidiately skip to the minion phase. Any ready vampire with a city title may burn this card as a D action.

Flavor text:
"Can you hear me N....########"

So, we stop that nonsense with MPAs, but Timmy the kid with his vessel+blood doll+ Mata hari and 12 huntimg grounds deck wont off himself.....

Miasmat wrote:

How about this?
Methuselahs do not replace cards during their Master Phase.

Think it could be stronger:

Methuselahs do not replace cards played during their master phase until their discard phase.

This has a significant impact on MMPA decks, less on other decks.

Ke. wrote:

Miasmat wrote:

How about this?
Methuselahs do not replace cards during their Master Phase.

Think it could be stronger:

Methuselahs do not replace cards played during their master phase until their discard phase.

This has a significant impact on MMPA decks, less on other decks.

I quite like it, sort of, though I'd be interested to see how many decks would be happy about the impact on their own master card playing. A deck playing Wider View + Fame during its master phase isn't - currently - doing anything particularly outlandish. It's not a fearsome MMPA deck of doom or anything, but losing two slots in your hand for a whole minion phase is quite nasty(*). That's on top of the fact that you might not get to draw the second master after playing a Trifle, which while not the end of the world isn't completely insigificant.

Of course, you can then say "Well, a deck like that wouldn't plan to play Trifles/more than one master even if it plays a Trifle", which is potentially fine - but that's a fairly significant "hidden" cost of the card. Dropping back to never playing more than one master card per turn is a fairly significant cost to you. And then if MMPA doesn't show up on the table, or doesn't show up on the table as someone you want to hit really hard (do you want to screw up your grand-predator ally right now? maybe not), you're potentially sacrificing a not-insubstantial amount of power for something relatively silver bullety.

But I think there's a kernel of something interesting, maybe.





(*) I pick Fame thinking about combat decks. They don't usually play the largest number of master cards in the game, partly to avoid hand jam during their turns (drawing into Blood Doll and a Hunting Ground during a combat is aggravating) - but losing even a single slot in their hand would annoy some of them quite a lot, particularly when combined with a DNR clause on Bum's Rush.